A father of two has been jailed for nine months for his role in the cultivation of 346 marijuana plants at a St Albans house.
Tuan Minh Pham pleaded guilty to one charge of cultivating a commercial quantity of plants weighing 167.35 kilograms.
The County Court heard the 35-year-old had been recruited for the operation in a “limited way” to eliminate a “moderate” personal debt.
On September 18 last year, after three hours of surveillance, police went to the Power Street property and found an elaborate hydroponic equipment set-up and closed circuit television. Seized were 346 plants, a commercial quantity of 25 kilograms.
“That, in anybody’s language, is a lot,” Justice John Smallwood said in sentencing Pham on April 1. “It is a single-day count and you can only be sentenced for having been in the premises, on instructions that you have given your counsel, watering a number of the plants.
“When interviewed by police you essentially did not admit the offending, but very shortly thereafter by reason of your plea you did. If it was not a commercial quantity, you would probably not go to jail at all, but the fact of the matter is, Mr Pham, it is a lot of cannabis.”
Pham had been in jail for 196 days prior to sentencing.
